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The story
In 1886 Charles Eason, a manager of WHSmith wrote to the company asking if he could buy out the company. WHSmith sold its Irish section to him that year and there would not be a branch of WHSmith on any part of Ireland until 2001.
In 1913 James Larkin published a pamphlet warning the company not to stock the newspapers of William Martin Murphy during the 1913 lockout.
Originally all shops were owned and operated by Eason, but the chain began franchising with a number of new retail units operating independently under the Eason brand from the mid-2000s. In 2019, Eason acquired six of these shops and 17 of Eason shops are operated under a franchise agreement.
Shareholders voted to approve a sale and leaseback of the company's primarily owned shops in 2018 which created an independent retail business (Eason Retail PLC) and a separate entity holding shareholders’ property assets (Eason Holdings). Eason Holdings PLC entered voluntary liquidation in 2020 to facilitate a cash distribution to Eason shareholders from the proceeds of the sale of a number of properties since late 2018.
In 2020, Eason acquired rival bookseller Dubray Books; the Dubray units retained their brand and specialise in book sales, in contrast to the Eason-branded units' general offering of books, newspapers, magazines, stationery and other items.
On 23 March 2020, the company's seven shops in Northern Ireland temporarily closed in compliance with the government restrictions imposed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. On 15 July 2020, the company announced that, as a result of the pandemic, its Northern Irish shops would not reopen.
From Wikipedia’s article on Eason & Son, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5